CHAPTER TWO
A few hours after John left the cemetery a late model pickup slowed to a stop on a secondary road in the desert like emptiness southwest of Wimberley. The passenger door opened and John climbed out of the cab. He waved and thanked the man for the ride. As the pickup sped off John, stuck his fingers in the tops of his pockets and started walking down an all but abandoned strip of weed-grown asphalt.
John walked silently, his eyes on the ground. As he came around a slight turn that dipped down into a shallow valley his house came into view. It was nothing special, just a native stone house with a front porch and a shake shingle roof. Near the center was the chimney for the fireplace. Off to one side was a small storage shed that was all but overgrown by weeds, prickly pear and vines. John knew the little shack was bone empty and wondered how long it would take for it to finally give up and cave in.
He stepped up on the porch and pushed the front door open. He went through the sparsely furnished living room and into the kitchen. He looked in the refrigerator. It was, for the most part, bare. He removed a carton of milk, opened it, smelled it, then drained it. He threw the carton in the trash and walked back through the house, down the hallway and stopped outside a closed door.
He stood with his hand resting on it and his head lowered. His other hand rested on the imitation cut glass knob. As far as he knew, in his twenty years of life, he had never set foot in this room. It was his mother’s room and private. She had spent nearly ninety percent of her time in this room and had never, that he could remember, invited him inside. Now, he had to know what was so special about it. It was now his. The house, the land and everything on it was now his. The Will had been very clear, John Travis Jr. inherited everything.
“Forgive me Momma,” he whispered, turning the knob. “I have to know,” he added, pushing the door open slowly.
As it opened fully it squeaked on its hinges, sending shivers up his spine.
He stepped slowly into what amounted to a shrine to his father. Publicity pictures, concert announcements, three gold records on the wall, an acoustic guitar stood in a stand at the foot of the bed and against the wall. In another stand was the Fender Stratocaster. A microphone was in a mic stand and on a small upright piano was a file folder of music.
John looked around, touching things slowly, tenderly. He kept glancing at the photographs. He was nearly an identical twin to his late father. He brushed his fingers across one of the life-size cutouts of the famous star and realized tears slid from his face and dripped to the floor.
“Why didn’t she ever tell me?” he moaned miserably. “Maybe she thought I knew all along; that someone told me all about him. No one ever did. They must have thought she told me. She never did.” He shook his head slightly, then picked the acoustic guitar up from the stand and sat on the edge of the bed. He held the guitar awkwardly and strummed the far out of tune strings. He grimaced and looked down at the guitar. It was a Martin D-10. Whatever that is, he thought.
“I can learn,” he whispered, looking up at the photographs of his father. “I will learn! Someone will teach me!”
He sat the guitar back on the stand and looked around slowly once again. He touched things gently, reverently, inspecting everything, memorizing every nook and cranny of the shrine-like room.
“I’ll do it for you, Momma,” he promised seriously. “And you too, daddy. I’ll become a star, just like you were. But, not for me. Just you. I’ll bring you back to life through your music.”
John opened a closet door and looked inside. He found the two guitar cases and lay them open on the bed. He laid both guitars in their respective case reverently, then closed the tops and latched them. He got a backpack from his own room and put the file folders of music and songs in it. He took his money from his pocket and counted it carefully, then stuffed it back deep.
The next morning as the sun was coming up he walked back to the highway. He had a guitar case in each hand and his back pack on.
He was walking determinedly down the road when an old pickup pulled up beside him and stopped. He looked at the white haired man and smiled. He laid the cases in the bed of the pickup with his backpack and climbed in the cab.
Cotton Stubbs thought he might be seeing a ghost as he looked at this young man. He knew it was John Travis Jr. “Come on John,” he said with a friendly smile. “Get in here boy. Yore lettin alla my air-conditionin’ out!”
John laughed as he closed the door, noting that both the driver’s window and the passenger window were wide open.
“Boy, sure is hot already, huh?” John said tipping his hat to the old man. “How’d you know my name?” he added as an afterthought.
“Hell son, yore tha spittin image of your pa!” Cotton exclaimed seriously. “I’d be a damn fool not ta re-cog-nize you! Didn’t know you was a guitar man, though.”
“Guitar man?” John asked, then realized what the old man meant. “Oh, no sir,” he said. “I just got two of ‘em. They were my daddy’s.”
“That a fact?” Cotton asked suspiciously. “You play ‘em? Or sing?”
“No sir,” John replied. “I’m gonna find someone to show me. I promised Momma and Daddy I’d get famous and make them proud of me. They’re both together in Heaven now. My daddy died when I was a baby. Momma passed last month.”
“I knowed your folks,” Cotton said. “Tended both of their funerals. Knowed ‘em way back when. Your pa was a hell of a guitar player. Sing too! Never seen, nor heard nothin like ‘im before, or since. Sounded like five guitars being played at once. Used all his fingers at once! Musta had ten on each hand!”
“He musta been good, then!” John said.
“I quit playing before I ever found anyone as good,” Cotton said. “Damn hard row to hoe, son. Takes years of practice to play one of them damned things. Flusteratin all ta be damned, too! But, yore young yet.”
John stared out the window at the highway and scenery as they came into San Marcos. He realized they had fallen into silence, lost in their own thoughts.
“I’ll carry ya over ta I-thirty five. You’ll be needin’ ta go ta Austin. Lot of fine understandin folks in Austin.”
“Well, sir,” John said, “I appreciate the ride and the advice.”
“Good luck son,” Cotton said, pulling to a stop near the service road. “You’ll need it. It’s rough out there.”
John nodded his head and opened the door. He slipped into his back pack, then grabbed the handles of the two guitar cases and lifted them out of the bed. As the pickup drove off he walked across the service road, under the highway, then up the on-ramp on the other side.
He stood on 1-35 north with his thumb in the air and watched the traffic zoom past him as if he had leprosy. The sun was blistering hot and soon he was drenched in sweat. Finally, exasperated, as the sun was dropping into the west, he picked up the guitar cases and started walking north toward Austin; thirty miles away.
As he walked he thought about what he was going to do. He only had about two hundred dollars cash and no immediate prospects for getting more. He knew absolutely no one in Austin and really didn’t have a clue what he was going to do. It was a mad mission with little chance of actually working. But he would give it his best shot and if he failed, well, no one could say he hadn’t even tried.
He knew it was silly to depend on blind faith, the luck of the draw, chance! But, what else did he have? Nothing. Two guitars he couldn’t play and a stack of music he couldn’t read.
Well, he finally decided, as he walked along the highway in the dark, his only light from the passing cars that swooshed past as if being chased by demons, I have nothing to lose. Plus, I promised Momma and Daddy that I would make then proud of me! I at least gotta try, or hang my head in defeat. I will never do that, without trying first!
The highway seemed to stretch on forever into the night and the traffic zipped past him endlessly. He was soon exhausted and walking in a trance like state. He hadn’t slept well and had gotten up early and set out on th
is, what he now considered, foolhardy, mission. But, he had given his word, made his promises, and now he would live by them, regardless of his chances of success or own personal comfort. Some little something inside him seemed to whisper in his ear that he was going to make it. Somehow.
He realized he was staring into the dawn and seeing the fading street lights of Austin in the distance. He was exhausted, no doubt, but still he seemed to step a little lighter and his store of youthful energy seemed to return. He felt a slight rush of excitement in his chest and his heart seemed to beat a little harder and a little faster as his destiny neared from out of the early morning mist. But still even with that his arms ached miserably, an ache as he had never felt before. He hadn’t realized how heavy the two guitars would become over a period of hours.
He walked down an exit and at the traffic light turned to the left and downtown Austin. The traffic grew steadily heavier and faster. But still it seemed to not move quite as fast as it had the night before. He figured people were not quite as anxious to get to work as they were to leave work. He smiled, knowing he had often felt that way. He had also learned that once he got to work he forgot about not wanting to be there and enjoyed his time there.
He walked down the sidewalk several blocks, passing several storefronts before seeing a large sign that read HALL’S MUSIC EMPORIUM, in bright red letters on a white background. Then he saw a smaller sign that read INSTRUMENTS and ALL YOUR MUSICAL NEEDS. He crossed the street and as he neared the door he saw a wide collection of musical instruments in the showroom. He figured if anyone could teach him how to play the guitar it would be the man who owned this wide array of instruments. Wouldn’t he have to know how to play them all? Wouldn’t he have to be able to in order to demonstrate each instrument to potential customers?
He was about to sit the Strat case down and pull the door open when he saw the black lettered “CLOSED” sign. Underneath was a store hours schedule. It would not open until 9:00 A.M. He sat down to wait.
He had a guitar case on each side of him and his arms crossed on his knees. He rested his head on his crossed arms and was soon drifting into sleep. He was exhausted.
The rattling of the keys in the door lock woke him up. He startled and looked at the door, seeing no one. He stood and stepped over to it, pulled it and it opened. He realized it had been unlocked from the inside. He picked his cases up, struggled to open the door, then stepped inside the coolness and dimness of the big clean smelling store.
“Mornin’ son,” a man’s pleasant voice said off to one side. “You’re almighty anxious for something. Maybe I can help you?”
“Maybe,” John replied sitting the cases down. “Can you show me how to play these?”
“Fraid not,” the kindly man said. “I’m a brass and piano man myself.”
John studied the tall, elderly, white haired man as if he had heard his answer wrong. Deciding he had heard right, he took the backpack off and removed one of the files of music from it. “Can you read this?” he asked, handing the man the thick folder.
The man took the file and walked over to a Steinway, grand piano and took several sheets of the music out. He studied them for a few seconds, then looked up at John. “Did you write this?” he asked.
“No, Sir. My daddy wrote ‘em before he died.”
“I’ll be damned,” the man exclaimed half under his breath. “I thought the name was familiar. Well, let’s see if they work. Unusual arrangement,” he mumbled, placing the sheets in front of him. After a second of concentration he began playing them flawlessly.
John stood big eyed watching every move the man’s hands and feet made. To him, every move the man made made perfect sense. It was like a roadmap in his mind and for some reason he knew he could replicate what the man had done.
“Beautiful!” the man said with a big smile, beginning to rock with the beat of the music flowing from his fingers across the ivory keys. “Your daddy was a genius!” he said when he finished the piece.
“It didn’t look that hard,” John said. “Mind if I try it?”
“Sure, help yourself,” Hall replied looking smug as John took a seat on the bench.
After three false starts John smiled up at the man and said, “Ain’t as easy as it looked. Is it?”
The man laughed. “No, nothing ever is...” He began to stammer as John’s fingers began to find the keys in the proper sequence and the music began to flow from the Steinway.
“I’ll be damned,” the man whispered. “A real idiot savant! Right here in Hall’s Music Emporium!”
John continued to play the song until he reached the end. He looked up with a smile. “Pretty simple, really. Once I got the hang of it. Thought it would be harder.”
“Let me show you another,” Hall said. “It’s a little harder. See if you can play it.”
The man chose a sonnet from Midsummer’s Night Dream. When he finished and stood, John sat and as if replaying the man’s performance in his head, he played the sonnet flawlessly from beginning to end.
“Amazing!” Hall said breathlessly.
“Do you know anyone who can show me how to play the guitar?”
“Can you sing?” the man asked ignoring John’s question.
“Don’t know,” John shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve never tried.”
“Can you read?”
“Of course!” John sounded insulted.
“I’ll play your daddy’s song and you sing the words in tune with what I play, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll try,” John replied, figuring he was about to make a complete fool of himself. But he had made his promises to his folks and he would do what he had to do to keep those promises. Better to learn early on if he had what it took, or not, he figured.
Hall began replaying the music and to his complete surprise John came in perfectly in time and tune. His voice was clear, crisp and came from the very bottom of his diaphragm. He was as surprised as the merchant.
At the end of the song both of them were surprised by the enthusiastic clapping from behind them. They both turned to see a very pretty young woman standing behind them clapping excitedly. She appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties. She had long tawny colored hair and deep blue eyes. John thought she maybe stood five six or seven and maybe weighed a hundred and ten pounds or so. She wore casual clothing and filled them out nicely. John stood speechless, his mouth open, staring at the beautiful girl in front of him.
“You sure have a beautiful voice,” she said, realizing the discomfort her interruption had caused John. “I thought it was Angels when I came in.”
“Thank you,” John replied shyly. “I’m John Travis. I promised my Momma and Daddy that I’d become famous, just for them. Can you show me how to play the guitar?”
“I’m Judy Rivers,” she said offering him her hand. He took it gently and held it maybe a little too long. “No, I can’t. I just came in for a set of drumsticks for my little brother. Nice to meet you though, Mister Travis.”
John’s expectant smile dropped. He realized this was going to be a lot harder that he had first believed. He felt tenseness in his stomach that he had never felt before.
Hall stepped forward from the piano bench, “Drumsticks? We have quite a collection to choose from. If you will follow me, Miss.” Hall walked off through the store eager to make his first sell of the day.
Judy stood staring at John with obvious attraction. “Good luck, Mister Travis,” she said, not really wanting to leave this handsome young man.
“Thank you,” John said with a trace of disappointment in his voice. Would you call me John? I don’t want to put on airs an’ all.”
“Sure,” Judy smiled, nearly laughing. “If you like. Maybe you could go to a bar where they have live music. Maybe someone in a band could show you some things.”
“Shoot, I wouldn’t know how to act in a bar,” John said seriously. “Never been in one before.”
“If you intend to make it in the music business, you’d
better get used to it,” Judy stated seriously. “That’s where everyone gets started.”
“Are the drum sticks for you?” John asked curiously.
“No,” Judy replied, looking for the salesman. “They’re for my little brother. He’s taking band this year. He wants to be a drummer.”
John nodded his understanding, then looked back longingly at the piano. He put the sheet music back in the folder and the folder back into his backpack, then slipped into it. He picked the guitar cases up and started for the front door of the store.
“I’ll see you,” Judy said to his back, thinking he was a little strange. “Good luck, again.”
John stopped and turned back around. “Would you go with me,” he said. “To a bar? My treat. Where they have live music. I would never harm you, Judy.”
“Do you have a car,” she replied after a few seconds, realizing she would be perfectly safe with this innocent young man.
“No,” he replied, shaking his head sadly, then glanced back at the piano.
“Driver’s license?”
“No,” he replied, shaking his head again.
“Where do you live?” she asked.
“Wimberley.”
“Where are you staying here in Austin?”
“No place, yet,” he confessed. “I just got here.”
“We have a garage apartment at our house. You can rent it, if you want,” she said.
“Don’t have much money,” he confessed.
“We’ll work something out.” She smiled largely. “Come on.”